‘Indeed and I won’t tell you a lie,’ said Luke, half mournfully, ‘but that ‘s just what I believe he isn’t. The sub-rector says there’s nothing he couldn’t learn, either in the sciences or the humanities. He can write some of the ancient and three of the modern tongues. His disputations got him the medal; but somehow——’
‘Well—go on. Somehow——’
‘He’s wild—wild,’ said the friar, and as if he was glad to have found the exact word he wanted; ‘he ‘d rather go out on the Campagna there and ride one of the driver’s ponies all day, than he ‘d walk in full procession with all the cardinals. He ‘d like to be fighting the shepherds’ dogs, wicked as they are, or goading their mad cattle till they turn on him. Many a day they ‘ve caught him at that sport; and, if I ‘m not mistaken, he’s in punishment now, though Mrs. Mary doesn’t know it, for putting a ram inside the railings of a fountain, so that the neighbours durstn’t go near to draw water. ‘Tis diversions like these has made him as ragged and tattered as he is.’
‘Bad stuff for the cloister,’ said Charles, with a faint smile.
‘Who knows? Sure Cardinal Guidotti was at every mischief when a boy; and there’s Gardoni, the secretary of the Quirinal, wasn’t he the terror of the city with his pranks?’
‘Can I see this boy—I mean, could he be brought here without his knowing or suspecting to whom he was presented?’
‘Sure, if Kelly was to——’
‘Ay, ay, I know as well as you do.’ broke in the Prince, ‘George Kelly has craft and cunning enough for more than that; but supposing, my worthy Fra, that I did not care to intrust Kelly with this office: supposing that, for reasons known to myself, I wished this matter a secret, can you hit upon the means of bringing the lad here, that I might see and speak with him?’
‘It should be after dark, your Royal Highness, or he would know the palace again, and then find out who lived in it.’
‘Well, be it so.’